Tag Archives: recipes

Lazy Cake Cookies

12 Oct

This recipe needs just a few ingredients, cooks fast, and makes a great dessert to bring or even mail, anywhere!

I love going on Pinterest, you find so many great things that other people have already tried out. I’ve found some nice new additions to my repertoire, and today’s recipe is one I tried out this summer and have done many times since.

In July my school book club had it’s summer meeting which is one that is at someone’s house and everyone brings something to munch on. This year I wanted to bring dessert and I was looking for something new.

Lazy Cake Cookies from the I’m a Lazy Mom blog was it. When I saw the limited amount of time and ingredients needed, I was sold. It was summer after all, and who wants to spend all day baking? Not me.

The other thing about summer is that it’s both of my sister-in-laws’ birthdays, all in the month of August, with mine. My West Coast sister-in-law is at the beginning of the month, I’m in the middle and my East Coast sister-in-law is at the end of the month. So I decided that if this recipe was good (and it was), I’d make these cookies for their birthdays.

I’ve since made them for a play date in September and for when we went to my cousin Val’s for dinner this summer.  They’re great for any occasion and everyone always likes them.

See how cute? Chocolate hearts!

The neat thing is you use a cake mix as your base, and I’ve done white, chocolate and yellow. Chocolate was my favorite (surprise!) with white as my next favorite and yellow as my last favorite. Another neat thing about this recipe is that because it’s a bar cookie, you can use a cookie cutter to cut them into cute shapes. I did hearts for both my sister-in-laws because we love them, and I actually kept all the “scraps” and put them into a ziploc bag for my family to munch on after we shipped off the cookies.

Next time you need a fast recipe, a recipe to make and take, or just a recipe for your own family, give this one a try. You’ll be hooked on how fast it is, and you’ll make them again and again. I know I have!

LAZY CAKE COOKIES
INGREDIENTS

Cake mix, eggs and butter!

1 box yellow, white or chocolate cake mix

2 eggs, beaten

5 Tablespoons melted butter

2 cups mini chocolate chips or m&ms. (I don’t do mini.)

Use a pizza roller for ease in spreading!

DIRECTIONS

Mix the first three ingredients. Batter will be dry.

Add in your filler (chocolate chips, m&ms, etc.)

Spread in a 9×13 greased baking dish. (I find that spreading with a pizza roller works great!)

Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Make them and take them!

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Dinner on the Run

10 Oct

Even if we all have just one commitment, if they all fall on one night, that makes for a tough schedule to keep and we don’t want our nutrition to suffer.

Lately on Facebook, I’ve seen a lot of people asking for ideas for healthy and nutritious “dinners to go,” not as in take-out or fast food, but more as in, “What can I feed my kids on a night where we have to run from school to soccer to CCD,” type of a thing. Although we do try not to over-schedule our kids, I find that if you have more than one child, along with adult commitments too, it’s nearly impossible not to have a jam-packed schedule after school even if each child chooses just one activity. You multiply that times a large family and some nights you have no choice but to have a quick meal or to eat on the run.

The good thing about these Egg Muffins is that you can put anything you want in them, and people can tailor them to the likes and dislikes of the members of their family.

Recently I tried a new breakfast idea that I saw on Pinterest, originally from the Kalyn’s Kitchen blog  for Egg Muffins, and as we were eating them, I thought it’d be a perfect idea for dinner on the run, even though it was breakfast at the moment. It even said that you could use the leftovers from breakfast during the week if you refrigerated them. Another thing to think of when you have a large family: there aren’t often leftovers anymore! But, if I were doing this ahead of time, we would not eat them for our Sunday breakfast.

A couple of other things I liked about this meal were: 1) I thought they’d be great for a brunch item and 2) When you have several different sets of taste buds living under one roof, the ability to make one meal in a variety of ways is great. You can fill these with whatever you’d like.

When I made ours, I started out slow, just using two different fillers: spinach/cheese and ham/cheese. The ham/cheese filled muffins were the more popular of the two, although I liked them both.

With five of us, everyone had two and there were two left over which I put in a sandwich sized ziploc bag and later in the week I reheated them for my lunch after work one day. It was perfect.

If you’re looking for something healthy and different for those on-the-run nights, give this recipe from Kalyn’s Kitchen a try!

See her recipe below.

Filling goes into the cups first, then the eggs on top.

Egg Muffins

(Makes 12 muffins, recipe created by Kalyn with inspiration from The South Beach Diet book.

15 eggs (for silicone muffin pans, use 12 eggs for metal muffin tins. You can use less egg yolks and more egg white if you prefer.)
1-2 tsp. Spike Seasoning (optional, if you have food allergies or don’t have Spike, use any type of seasoning blend that’s good with eggs.)
1-2 cups grated low fat cheese (I like sharp cheddar or a blend of cheddar/Jack cheese, use less cheese if using meat)
Optional, but highly recommended, 3 green onions diced small.
Optional: chopped veggies such as blanched broccoli, red pepper, zucchini, mushrooms, etc. (Using veggies will reduce the fat content)
Optional: diced Canadian bacon, lean ham, or crumbled cooked turkey sausage

Yum!

Preheat oven to 375 F. Use regular or silicone muffin pan, 12 muffin size. If using silicone pan, spray with nonstick spray. If using regular muffin pan, put two paper liners into each slot, then spray liner with nonstick spray.

In the bottom of the muffin cups layer diced meat, if using, vegetables, if using, cheese and green onions. You want the muffin cups to be about 2/3 full, with just enough room to pour a little egg around the other ingredients. Break eggs into large measuring bowl with pour spout, add Spike, and beat well. (I used to add a bit of half and half or milk, but lately I like the way they turn out without it.) Pour egg into each muffin cup until it is 3/4 full. I like to stir slightly with a fork. Bake 25-35 minutes until muffins have risen and are slightly browned and set.

Muffins will keep more than a week in the refrigerator without freezing. Egg muffins can be frozen and reheated, but I like them best when they’re just refrigerated. For best results, thaw in refrigerator before reheating. Microwave on high about 2 minutes to reheat.

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Swedish Apple Pie

5 Oct

When September rolls around, it’s time for apple pie!

It’s my second-favorite time of year, other than summer: it’s fall in New England! There’s nothing like it, a beautiful season for all of the senses.

It’s actually already October now, really more pumpkin time than apple time, but I realized that I had never posted this recipe and I made it at least a month ago! It’s an oldie but goodie from my mom’s kitchen. The recipe card she originally wrote the recipe on states that she got it from “Good Neighbors.”

I like this recipe because it’s different than your typical two crust apple pie and because it’s fast. When I don’t have a crust on hand, I almost always have flour, sugar, butter and eggs, which is just about all you need to make this pie.

Before you whip out your pumpkin ingredients this October, try this pie while it’s still apple-picking time!

Simple ingredients mean that I almost always have them on hand!

SWEDISH APPLE PIE

Fill a 9″ pie plate 2/3 full with peeled Cortland or Macintosh apple slices.

Sprinkle with a mixture of:

1 TBL Cinnamon
2 TBL Sugar

Next, in a medium bowl, mix together:

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter or margarine
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup flour

Spread over apple slices and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with whipped cream, ice cream….or both!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad by Haile Thomas

3 Oct

Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad was on the menu at the Kids’ State Dinner at the White House in August.

Ever since our trip to DC for the Kids’ State Dinner, I’ve had a list a mile long of things I want to make that we either had on the trip or are recipes in the cookbook (free download here) we received from epicurious showing all the recipes from the other winners. One of the things I’d heard about but had never tried til DC was quinoa. It was in one of the dishes we ate at the White House, and it is now today’s recipe.

A few weeks ago I picked some up and I spent some time reading about what it is, how you cook it (has to be rinsed first in most recipes) and what kinds of things you eat it with. Even though I had the recipe for today’s dish, I actually used it first to make muffins, which four out of five of us liked, so you’ll see that at some point in the future too.

Caroline was so excited that we were finally going to try out this recipe, it’s been at the top of her list too!

Last week we tried out Haile Thomas’ recipe. Haile is from Arizona and Caroline and I both loved her dish when we had it in DC. Haile is 11, and the cookbook blurb states that they began experimenting with quinoa when the family gave up eating white rice when her dad learned that he was a diabetic.

“The secret to [the recipe’s] success is that ‘all the kids love it, the ingredients are affordable, it’s easy to make and it’s just plain good,'” Haile’s mom says in her quote. They say it can be served hot or cold and I agree. We had ours as a side dish with quesadillas and again, the same four out of five of us loved it. I guess quinoa is now going on Alex’s Don’t Like List.

Coincidentally, just as I finished typing this, I found out that Haile is featured in this month’s Food and Flourish Magazine. In fact, she’s not only featured on pages 26-31, but she’s ON THE COVER!

If you haven’t tried quinoa before, I highly recommend it. I’m thrilled to have another healthy option for side dishes with our meals and I’m glad so many of my family members love it!

**Any modifications I had to make for this recipe I have put in parentheses. **

Haile’s Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad

Serves 6

I love all of the colors in recipes like this. We definitely “ate a rainbow” with this dish!

INGREDIENTS

2 (15 ounce) cans of organic black beans (ours weren’t organic) drained and rinsed
4 cups fresh corn (we used a bag of frozen, cooked but not hot)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered (I chopped up a large tomato)
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 medium red onion, chopped (I used half, it was large)
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (I used dried parsley)
2 avocados, pitted, peeled and cut into cubes
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon halved (mine was bad so I used lemon juice instead)
Sea salt

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, combine the black beans, corn, tomatoes, quinoa, cilantro or parsley, red onion, avocados, and olive oil.

Squeeze the lemon halves and add their juice to the bowl.

Toss to combine, then season to taste with salt and serve.

Cook’s note from the Thomas family: To make this dish hot, warm it on the stovetop of in a microwave, or saute all the ingredients together and add the avocados and cilantro or parsley after it’s plated.

This was a perfect side dish for our quesadillas last week!

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My new toy and TWO new recipes!

28 Sep

Isn’t it SO beautiful???

I have a new toy.

I’m *so* excited about it.

It’s something  I’ve wanted for a long, long time. Years and years.

Thanks to the folks at epicurious, I finally have it.

What is it you ask? (See, I always know when you’re asking.)

It’s my new Kitchen Aid Pouring Shield for my stand up mixer.

I know, I know!!!  I’m excited too!

When we went to Washington DC this summer for our White House luncheon, we got a goodie bag from the organizers of the event. There was all kinds of stuff in it, and one of the goodies was a gift card from epicurious! We could spend it however we wanted, on ANYTHING!!

I’d never been on their website before, and omg…there was tons! But, I had a budget of course, and I stayed within $2.85 of that budget. My pouring shield was on sale!! I couldn’t even believe my luck!! Even better…I had a coupon code for being a first time shopper (10% off)…and you KNOW how much I love coupons…I was even able to get a cupcake plunger too (you’ll see that come up on here  eventually too, I’m sure.) It was almost as exciting as meeting Michelle Obama. Well not quite. But you know what I mean.

So now I had to try it out, but I needed to wait for a time when I needed to mix something. You don’t just use a pouring shield every day, you know.

The pouring shield was a dream come true. No baking cocoa all over my counter and wall. Love, love, love it!

On Tuesday when Caroline asked me approximately 47 times if she could bake cupcakes, I knew I had my opportunity. We had a no school day on Wednesday and it would also be a grocery shopping day, so we’d be re-stocked on all the items we needed to make cupcakes, since for every recipe she showed me we were out of something.

We opted to go with Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting.

I know….you had no idea we’d go with the chocolate. Shocker, I’m sure.

Caroline found this new cupcake recipe on the Cookie Madness website. We did not use the no powdered sugar frosting recipe that went with it, however, because we had powdered sugar at our house. I’ll post both recipes  we used, so that you can see what we did for frosting.

This recipe was perfect for testing out my new pouring shield. It worked great every time, not one speck of powdered sugar or cocoa went flying anywhere! I’m in love…

COOKIE MADNESS QUICK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS

2/3 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsweetened natural style unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted after measuring (4.5 oz)

Cool for a few minutes in the pan and then on a cooling rack, before frosting.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 12 cupcake cups with paper liners.

Mix together milk and lemon juice and set aside to curdle.

Beat oil and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in
egg, vanilla, salt, and baking soda until well blended. Beat in cocoa powder. With a large mixing spoon or rubber scraper, stir in the flour alternately with the milk until flour is absorbed.

Divide batter equally between 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan on rack 20 minutes. Remove to platter to continue cooling.

Each of the three girls got to frost four cupcakes and eat one, saving another for the next day.

CHOCOLATE BUTTER CREAM FROSTING
Better Homes & Gardens

INGREDIENTS***We halved this recipe which was more than enough for 12 cupckaes.***

1/3 cup butter
4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

Milk as needed

DIRECTIONS

In a bowl beat butter or margarine til fluffy.

Add in cocoa.

Gradually add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating well.

Slowly beat in 1/4 cup of milk and vanilla.

Slowly beat in remaining sugar.

Picasso over here took about five full minutes to frost each cupcake. Each one was perfectly done when she finished.

Beat in additional milk if necessary to make of spreading consistency.

One full recipe makes enough to frost the tops and sides of two eight or nine inch layer cakes.

One each, saved for the next day.

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Sausage & Peppers

26 Sep

Everyone at our house likes some aspect of this recipe, whether it’s the sausage, the peppers, the pasta or all three!

Today’s recipe is one of those not-an-exact-recipe posts. It’s more of a meal suggestion post.

We’ve been back to school for one month now, and everything is getting back in full swing. We often need a fast, easy meal so we can eat together and then run to wherever we need to be.

Sausage and Peppers is that meal. Not so often because it’s not super-healthy for you, but on occasion it’s a good one.

We usually throw ours on top of pasta so that there is something for everyone to choose from, no matter what they like or don’t like.

To make this simple meal you need just a few ingredients:

Sweet Italian Sausage cooked through and sliced
Sliced Peppers (red, green, yellow any color will do!)
Sliced Onions

Cooked pasta (we like egg noodles but any kind is fine)

And the directions are simple:

Saute your veggies in olive oil and garlic.
Add cooked, sliced sausage (you can either cook your sausage under the broiler first, then cool and slice or you can cook on top of the stove, cool and slice).
Saute sliced sausage with sliced veggies.

Serve on top or next to pasta.

Option: Sometimes we offer rolls for sausage and pepper sandwiches instead of pasta. The sandwich version also makes a great meal to serve for our at-home birthday parties as part of our buffet.

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A Great Snack for Fall: Cranberry “Brownies”

21 Sep

Alex’s favorite new snack.

Yesterday morning, as I was debating which fall dessert recipe to post for today, Alexandra came up to me and said, “Mom, when are you going to make that snack again?”

“Which snack?”

“You know…The One.  In the bag. The one you made us.”

Well, that narrows it right down, right?

Actually, the thing that clued me in was when she said, “In the bag,” because this particular snack was so yummy I cut them up and put them in baggies for the kids to take in their lunches the day after I first made them. They all loved them and I knew this new recipe was a keeper for sure.

So there it was. The snack. In the bag.

That’s what I should have called today’s post.

I tried this recipe a couple of weeks back when I was absolutely starving late one night and even though I was so starving, by the time it finished I was too tired to eat anything and I went to bed. It’s from a cookbook that Alexandra actually got for me for Christmas at last year’s Holiday Shoppe at school and it is the first recipe I’ve tried from it. The cookbook is called “Home Cookin'” and is an AT&T employee cookbook. The recipe is credited to Joan E. Dill.

Although it says “Brownies,” they are actually not chocolate based.

And yes, I still made them.

It also said in the recipe, “or Apple” so I actually did both. I used craisins and apples.

I’m going to make them again this weekend probably because Alex is having a serious craving for them, apparently.
CRANBERRY BROWNIES (or APPLE)

Craisins and apples are a great match for fall.

INGREDIENTS

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 cups cranberries or cut up, peeled apple
1/4 c. water

DIRECTIONS
Cream butter and sugar.
Beat in egg.
Sift flour, soda, baking powder and cinnamon together.
Add to creamed mixture with vanilla and blend well.
Add water, as needed to help, as mixture will be thick.
Mix in cranberries (and/or apples).
Spread in greased , floured 8×8 baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes until center is set.

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Easy Garlic Chicken

19 Sep

This recipe got a thumbs up from all five of us, which is a rarity! Even the leftovers went quickly!

Last week I was on Facebook when a friend of mine posted a very simple recipe for garlic chicken. I absolutely love garlic, and I love brown sugar, which it called for, and I even had all the ingredients for the recipe already. I decided to make it the very next day. She had gotten the recipe from Food.com and you can see the recipe here. It was called Easy Garlic Chicken, and I love Easy as much as I love Garlic and Brown Sugar.

Originally, when I saw the cooking temperature, 500 degrees, I asked whether or not that was too high, but it wasn’t. We cooked ours at that temperature and we actually had to use the entire 30 minute cooking time because our very large chicken breasts were still partially frozen in the middle. We also differed from the recipe by using bone-in, with skin, rather than boneless, skinless. Every so often I like to mix it up a bit and buy bone-in breasts.

A side of sauteed asparagus and brown rice completed the meal. I’d definitely make this again and I encourage you to give it a try too!

EASY GARLIC CHICKEN

It was tempting for me to keep tasting the brown sugar rub. Very tempting.

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons olive oil
DIRECTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.
2) In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.
3) Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.
4) Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.
5) Add salt and pepper to taste.
6) Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes.

We couldn’t wait for these to be done, the whole house smelled fabulous the entire time they were cooking!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Baked Zucchini Fries

12 Sep

I have had lots of requests for the Baked Zucchini Fries recipe ever since I posted this photo from the Washington DC Kids’ State Dinner.

I’ve had a lot of requests for this recipe for Baked Zucchini Fries, ever since I posted this photo on my blog and on Facebook recently. It being zucchini season, it’s a perfect recipe to make at the end of the summer, and really throughout the year.

We actually made this recipe at the end of the summer ourselves, using a garden zucchini. They were delicious and they were easy. We used the recipe in our new The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge cookbook that epicurious gave us at the White House dinner. The recipe comes from Sydney Brown, age 11, from North Carolina. She submitted it with her winning Homerun Meatloaf Burger recipe as the side dish to accompany the burgers.

There are so many recipes in this cookbook that I want to try out, and slowly but surely I’m trying them one at a time.

This was a perfect summer meal!

We had our fries with oven baked chicken, garden tomato salad, and green beans. Don added a dip on the side for the fries which consisted of a mix of mayo and cocktail sauce.

Here is Sydney’s recipe, just as she has it in the cookbook. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1 large egg white

1/3 cup milk

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs

salt and pepper

2 large green or yellow zucchini, peeled, trimmed, and cut into strips (2″ long 1/4″ thick)

Place your zucchini fries on a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 425 degrees.

DIRECTIONS

Combine the egg white and milk in a small bowl and combine the Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper in another small bowl.

Dip the zucchini slices first in the milk mixture and then in the cheese mixture. Shake off any excess, then move to the baking sheet and place in the oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees.

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It’s that time of year again: After School Snack Time PB Oatmeal Balls

7 Sep

I’m always on the lookout for healthy after school snacks. Pinterest is my new best friend when it comes to searching for them!

So we’ve eased into the school year. Short week last week, short week this week.

Per usual, I’ve already got one kid home sick today as I type this post, so we’re really back to normal here.

Summer is for sure over.

The upside to the end of summer: After School Snacks!

I don’t know about you and your kids, but mine come home ravenous from school and I myself, need a pick me up before I start to cook dinner. I like to put out a set snack so that I monitor what’s being eaten and so that no one is just picking through the fridge, eating aimlessly.

Enter the After School Snack.

At my house, the After School Snack also counts as Dessert. I don’t usually make a dessert at night for after dinner because I don’t like my kids to go to bed on a full stomach and Caroline in particular has trouble with her stomach, so I try to end the day’s eating for them with their dinner, at least during the school week. Weekends are a bit different.

Therefore, I don’t mind making a sweeter after school snack for them since it’s their dessert usually too.

With our new school schedule for Caroline, she’s home an hour before the other two girls, so she’s been excited to help plan or make the snack for them. Last week she got a kick out of serving it to them when they got home. We took a recipe for Peanut Butter Oatmeal Butterscotch Balls (no bake, no eggs) from Pinterest and instead of Butterscotch Chips, which we didn’t have, we used mini chocolate chips, which I like better anyway. They were a hit. All five of us liked them and they were quick and easy.

The recipe is originally from a blog called Tasty Kitchen and you can see the original post here.

The recipe, which was quick and easy, can be tweaked however you like it. You can add in different types of chips the way I did or sub in raisins, which I thought would be good too. It’s got lots of potential to be more than one kind of after school snack.

Try it out and see what you think! As usual, I worked with what I had on hand, so if I made changes, I’ve noted them below. I do the best I can with what I have.

INGREDIENTS

  • ¼ cups Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1-¼ cup Rolled Oats
  • 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoons Salt
  • ½ cups Creamy Peanut Butter
  • ¼ cups No-sugar-added Applesauce (I had cinnamon applesauce and therefore didn’t need to add cinnamon to the recipe as it called for)
  • ⅓ cups Light Maple Syrup (minewasn’t light)
  • 1 Tablespoon Honey
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • ¼ cups Butterscotch Chips (I used mini semisweet chocolate chips)

Wet ingredients in one bowl, dry in the other, then combine and scoop into balls.

DIRECTIONS

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk the flour, oats, cinnamon and salt; set aside.

Cream the peanut butter, applesauce, maple syrup, honey and vanilla in a large bowl until well-combined.

Add the flour and oats mixture and stir until combined. Add butterscotch chips and stir well.

Scoop about two tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Repeat with the other dough. Recipe makes about 16 dough balls.

Refrigerate or freeze and enjoy!

After a few minutes in the freezer (about 15) the snack was ready and Caroline was ready to show off what we’d made them.

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